Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-05-12
ROOM FOR MILLIONS.
The 1nexhaustible Agricultural Resources
| of the Brazilian Empire.

The 1nexhaustible Agricultural Resources
of the Brazilian Empire.
After the Portuguese the Germans
are the most numerous immigrants in
Brazil; then Spaniards. mostly Gallo
ians and Galatians; many Italians.
French, Swiss and English settlers. and
few Americans from the Southern
States who have not generally been
successful in regaining fortunes lost in
the last war. Germany sends every
year thousands of hardy settlers, who
till the land and develop the agrieul-
tural resources of the country. In for
mer years most of the Europeans. es-
pecially the Germans, settled in the
northern part of the Empire, where
they persisted miserably, either from
the severity of the climate or from
malarial fevers. Other causes of fail
ure were the want of roads and the
neglect to bring supplies for the colo
nists, and in many cases the dishonesty
or the neglect of the companies under
whose direction the colonists arrived,
and, perhaps not the least, the hostility
OF the JdzendeirOs, who, it is said,
number about 5000 and own one-half
Of Brazil. This estimate would give
each proprietor about $50 square miles
of land, a territory extending over hill
and dale. forest and plain. beyond the
reach even of the eagles eye.
Thus it has ever been that Europe
has been drained of her hardy and in
dustriOus inhabitants in the vain at
tempts to establish permanent settle
ments within the tropical regions of the
East and West Indies, of Asia and of
Africa. Since the tide of immigration
has been directed to the Southern pro-
vinces the rate of increase from foreign
sources has been from two hundred
to two hundred and fifty thou
| sand yearly. 1t is estimated that
| from natural increase the population
doubles every twenty-five to thirty
| years, because in the thicklv settled
| districts the soil is fertile, the climate
mild and healthy, and free from epi-
denies of yellow fever, which are Sc
we're only on the coast. If Brazil were
| as densely populated as Holland, or
| even rs Great Britain, it would contain
more than Il thousand million of inhab-
| itants, which number it could easily
support. for it has not foot of desert,
and the portions of its surface with
drawn from cultivation would be the
surface of its vast water courses.
The country now realizes the fact
that her wealth lies in her tdzenddS,
covered with vines, plantations of to-
bacco, coffee, cotton and sugar cane;
her fields of grain, corn and rice; in her
medicinal plants and dye-woods; in a
word, in all the productions of the
temperate and tropical climates, rather
| than in her mines, however rich. These
will form the articles of future export,
and will cause her commercial cities,
as Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco
and others on the Atlantic, and great
centers yet to be founded on her mighty
rivers, to increase in population and in
wealth. All her cities now in existence
are on the coast, and form what might
we'll be called the commercial zone.
Rio de Janeiro has an estimated popu-
latiOn of 546, 1913. 1t is situated almost
under the southern tropic, with the
| latitude of Jamaica, but a much milder
climate. A spacious channel affords a
safe entrance to, perhaps, the finest
| harbor in the world, a small inland sea
separated from the ocean by Mount
Gavia and the lofty peaks of the Tijuaca.
more than two thousand feet high, and
| Corcovado, three thousand feet. 1t is
more than one hundred miles in circum-
ference and without eXaggeratiOn would
| afford shelter to all the navies and
merchant ships in both hemispheres.-
| iSanitarian.